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Sunday, January 29, 2023

Perfectly possessed?

Sermon for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany

How do you feel
when you realise
that the devils
and the demons
know Jesus better than you do?

 

This is a fact that we have to understand.

 It is clear that the Devil knows
Holy Scripture better than we do.

It is clear that the devils recognise
Jesus as Son of God before anyone of us does.

Look, and see how it is
that two possessed men
call Jesus the Son of God
before a billion people
come to realise that fact.

 

So if the devils know Jesus
better than we do,
does that not show us
just how small and stupid,
sinful and worthless
 we are?

 

[PAUSE]

 

The first thing to remember,
is that Christ becomes incarnate
for the sole purpose
 of saving us.

 
Once we have that belief,
we know that
we are not worthless.

We must accept that
because we are blind to God
through Adam’s sin.

We do not understand
or see things as the spirits do.

We know that we are
not wholly spiritual beings,
because we have flesh
and the flesh lusts against the spirit
and spirit last against the flesh.

It doesn't make us stupid
that we cannot see God.

It is a consequence of our human nature.

It is a consequence of our fall from grace.

 

[PAUSE]

 

We have established two things, then.

First that we are worth the death of Christ.

Second that we are blind to Christ.

And now
we must remember
that it is partly the Devil’s fault
that we are blind in the first place.

He still is able to see God,
but he cannot approach him.

 

We do see that our Lord
wants to free us
from all that is not his.

To be possessed by devils
is to be enslaved to them.

To be possessed means that
whatever we want to do
 we cannot do
for someone else is using us 
to do their will.

Demonic possession 
Is a form of slavery,
and it is motivated 
by pure hatred.

How do we know?

If love seeks our perfection,
then hatred must seek
to prevent our perfection.

The Devil does not want us
to be perfect in God;
he wants us to be playthings of his will
and perfect puppets of his hatred
of all that is good.

That cannot be love.

It means that where the Devil’s will is,
God’s will is not.

There is a converse to this 
that where God is,
 hatred cannot be
and the Devil cannot stand.

 

It all depends on
who we want to be perfect with.

 

[PAUSE]

 

Jesus tell us,
“be perfect 
as your Father in Heaven 
is perfect.”

This is why the Devils flee
when He comes near.

This is how they know him.

They know him because
his very presence drives them away.

They may know him
but they know him out of fear.

Likewise,
the Devil knows Christ
out of fear
because he knows that
he cannot win.

The Devil cannot win souls 
who truly turn to Christ.

 

We may be blind to Christ
through our fallen nature.

We must accept that,
but each is our search for Christ
in humility and in honesty
where we encounter him truly.

Christ’s presence
doesn't drive us away
because we are not wholly evil.

 We are fallen,
and we may choose to remain fallen,
but ultimately the image of Christ in us
is still visible.

Whether we like it or not,
we are ikons of Christ.

So it really doesn't matter
if the Devil knows God
better than we do,
because he knows him out of hatred.

Our job is to know God
out of love and,
because God is love,
the more we love,
the more we know God
and we know him in a way
that makes the devil tremble
because we know God in a way
that the devil cannot.

 

[PAUSE]

 

Here in the Mass,
we receive truly
the Body and Blood of Christ.

He is truly present in the host
and within the chalice.

This means that the Devil cannot be there.

While we may receive the sacrament
with clouded minds
clouded with sinful thoughts 
and foolish ideas,
we still receive Christ.

We must therefore use
what has been taken in
with our body to percolate into the soul.

This is why we have the liturgy.

If we concentrate,
if we focus our hearts and minds
on what is happening,
then we drive out devils.

We can believe that.

We must believe that.

 

We are allowed to be perfect in Christ.

We must therefore allow
His presence to drive out
the evil from our lives.

We cannot do this ourselves
any more then we can chase
the darkness out of the room
before we switch the light on.

But we can switch the light on.

We can seek perfection 
in Christ.

We can allow the Divine Light
to shine in us
and the darkness will clear away.


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